Adventures in Architecture

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed Jeff Stein’s interview with Alex Wilson in the Measure issue.  I disagree, however, with Wilson’s opinion that designers need only know the proper resources to achieve good “green” results, and that the “intelligent” people who write the standards can handle the rest.  To the contrary, I believe architects need to be exceptionally sharp and critical, especially when it comes to intelligently engaging environmental standards—and more importantly, SURPASSING them.

When it comes to thinking “generations” in advance and pursuing truly zero-carbon architecture (a step beyond being ‘less bad’), we- as an industry- need to start being critical of our own decision-making processes, and develop robust design methodologies, rather than using green guides as a crutch to limp towards a slower rate of environmental decline.  We need to integrate environmental intelligence into our practices in a way that turns the checklists into a formality, rather than a prevailing catalyst for decision-making.  We need to create a professional culture which produces designers who ask informed, critical questions, who can assess the complexities of “greenness” within a coherent, intelligent framework; who can identify and resolve the most critical problems, and who can do all this without compromising their design integrity or restricting the creative flexibility our industry needs to thrive.  Their environmental skills need to be inseparable from their design skills.  In other words, we need to fundamentally change the way we teach and practice architecture.

Sustainability is, by definition, how well an entity withstands the test of time and maintains its expected level of performance.  The practice of architecture is fundamentally an industry of knowledge and expertise. It’s no more sustainable to “out-source” our thinking and problem solving, than it is to “out-source” the manufacture of green products.  By extension, the manufacture and maintenance of environmental design knowledge and the construction of robust design methodologies need to “move closer to the point of use.”  As an industry, we need to evolve.

Lisa Ann Pasquale
M.Sc Candidate, Sustainable Environmental Design
The Architectural Association, London

The Innovative Client-PDF Download

A chic glass-box housing complex, a carbon-neutral development, and a demountable, re-configurable, modular housing prototype for temporary workers: are these the imaginings of a hip, 20-something designer? Not quite. These projects are real and comprise the newest chapters of the Peabody Trust’s development portfolio, a 150-year-old, nonprofit developer and community building organization based in London. Founded in 1862 by Massachusetts native and philanthropist George Peabody, the Trust works to curb poverty and improve communities in greater London by developing housing and community programs.

One recent focus of the Trust is housing for “key workers” —such as teachers, healthcare workers, police, and firefighters —which will ensure that those who serve a community can afford to live there. The Trust has a knack for tackling projects on multiple fronts, balancing the social, technical, and environmental impacts of its projects and pushing for innovative design solutions that benefit both the tenants of its properties and the communities that contain them. In 2004, the Trust was recognized by the Royal Institute of British Architects with a “Client of the Year” award, which noted the organization’s “pioneering work in off-site construction [and] the realization of truly sustainable housing,” in reference to its Raines Court project.

The Trust’s most internationally recognized project is BedZED, or Beddington Zero-Energy Development, in the Borough of Sutton. Completed in 2002, the 82-home, mixed-use site uses a range of technologies and environmental strategies to maintain its carbon-neutral footprint. Thermal-mass walls and passive solar orientation reduce or eliminate the need for mechanical heating and cooling. Tree-pruning waste helps to fuel a combined heat and power plant, which supplies the site with hot water and electricity.

One of the Trust’s most interesting experiments in modular construction is Barons Place. Envisioned to house some of the city’s temporary health workers, the project uses modular technology to achieve a demountable, reconfigurable housing development, which can be rapidly disassembled and redeployed with the ebb and flow of land values and employment economies. Barons Place is a compact apartment complex of one and three bedroom rental units and was completed in just 14 weeks; the pre-finished, steel-frame boxes were placed in less than two days.

While the term “temporary worker housing” in the US suggests rural, migrant-worker housing, in the UK, it describes a program for housing key workers who are temporarily assigned to the city. Rarely has the concept of temporary, mobile housing been tested at the level of design requisite for making it successful in urban environments.

The Peabody Trust’s work in modular development is serving as a benchmark for other housing associations (nonprofit developers) in London, says architect Andrew Matthews, whose firm, Proctor and Matthews Architects, designed Barons Place. As nonprofits seek new ways of reducing construction time and costs without sacrificing the quality of the development, he notes, Trust projects have suggested new design approaches and methodologies.

The Trust is a sophisticated provider of homes that “foster social and economic regeneration” through its commitment to sustainability, innovation, and respect for the people it serves. With its ability to identify and solve social, technical, and environmental development issues, the Peabody Trust is raising standards for affordable housing throughout London.

L.A. Pasquale is a graduate student at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

Letters to the Editor, Architecture Boston, September 2007- PDF Download

Announced in March, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s proposal to enliven the city’s evening venues with lighted billboards has rightfully provoked skepticism. Some expect that this initiative will become a social and economic catalyst for the city’s night spots. However, the success of these catalysts is inherently linked to implementing a significant density of ground-level programming that can use those graphics as active backdrops.

Shanghai’s Huang Pu waterfront sets the Bund, a strolling promenade throbbing with activity, against the glitz of Pudong’s signage and building lights. The spectacle, lit from dusk until late evening, provides entertainment between the dinner and clubbing hours in a city whose identity is tethered to its rebellious nightlife. Times Square’s billboards are juxtaposed against massive volumes of commercial space which are open almost all night, crystal-lizing New York City’s 24/7 urbanism. It would be embarrassing if Boston pursued what can be no more than a superficial, Band-Aid urbanism, if these catalysts were inhibited by future timid planning schemes. For urban pulse points to throb, they need more than just signage; they need the infrastructure and planning to support and attract large night-crowds. Dense, downtown housing blocks, programmed, lit, public spaces, like winter gardens and night-markets, and public transportation that operates after last-call, must become priorities for the city.

Let’s push for further planning initiatives that create the human and commercial density requisite for making such installations more than cheap symbols of surrendering urban design to commercialism. We must ensure these night venues have the programmatic and infrastructural resolution to support vitality in our night spots. Otherwise, Boston may be embarrassed to stand among cities like Shanghai, New York, and Hong Kong, gloating over its proverbial cufflinks, when it hasn’t any pants.

L. A. Pasquale
Boston